Getting Started
Spanning from the early medieval period through the 17th century in Europe and its colonies, this era saw art serve purposes far beyond simple decoration. Art was a powerful tool, commissioned by influential patrons—from church leaders and kings to city governments and wealthy families—to instruct, inspire, persuade, and commemorate. Understanding who paid for art, where it was displayed, and what it was meant to do is essential to interpreting its form and meaning.
What You Should Be Able to Do
Explain how a patron's goals shaped the content and form of a work of art.
Analyze how the original location of an artwork (e.g., a church, a palace) influenced its meaning and function.
Describe how artworks were used to facilitate religious devotion, ritual, or political propaganda.
Explain how the rise of art academies began to change the identity and training of the artist.
Key Developments & Analysis
The Power of Patronage: Who Paid for Art and Why?
During this period, artists rarely created works for themselves. Instead, they worked for a patronage system, where a patron (an individual or group) commissioned and paid for the art. The patron's identity and goals directly dictated the work's subject, materials, size, and style.
Corporate patronage involved commissions from organized groups like the Church, a monastery, a guild, or a city government. These works often served a public function. For example, a cathedral's stained-glass windows were a corporate commission intended to be didactic—that is, to teach biblical stories to a largely illiterate congregation. Similarly, the Bayeux Tapestry (English or Norman), c. 1066–1080, was a massive embroidery likely commissioned by a Norman patron to be displayed in a cathedral. Its function was both commemorative, celebrating the Norman conquest of England, and propagandistic, justifying the Norman claim to the throne for a wide audience.
Individual patronage came from specific, powerful people like kings, popes, or wealthy merchants. These commissions could be for public display, like a sculpture for a city square, or for private use within a palace or chapel. Diego Velázquez’s career was built on his role as court painter to King Philip IV of Spain. His masterpiece, Las Meninas (Diego Velázquez), c. 1656, was created for the king's personal study in his palace. It functions as a complex statement on the status of the artist, the nature of painting, and the prestige of the royal court, intended for a very small, elite audience.
Art performed many functions for these patrons:
Propagandistic: To promote a political or religious agenda.
Commemorative: To celebrate a historical event or honor a person.
Didactic: To teach or instruct.
Devotional: To aid in prayer and religious worship.
Ritual: To be used in a specific ceremony or religious service.
Decorative: To beautify a space and display wealth.
Art in Service of Faith: Devotion and Doctrine
For much of this era, the Christian Church was the most significant patron of the arts. Artworks in churches, chapels, and convents were not merely decorative; they were functional tools for worship and instruction.
Some objects were designed to create a direct connection with the divine. A reliquary is a container that holds a sacred object, such as the bone of a saint. The Reliquary of Sainte-Foy (French), ninth–tenth century, holds the remains of a child martyr. Covered in gold and gems (many of which were donated by pilgrims), the object itself was believed to have miraculous powers and was a focal point for pilgrimage and ritual.
Other works, known as icons, are sacred images of holy figures used to focus prayer and facilitate a spiritual connection. While more central to the Byzantine tradition, the concept of the holy image as a conduit to the divine was fundamental to Western European art as well.
However, the use of figural imagery in religious contexts was not universally accepted. All three major medieval religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) experienced periods of iconoclasm, the theological rejection and destruction of religious images. Debates over whether images constituted idol worship led to significant shifts in artistic production at various times and places.
The Rise of the Academy and the Professional Artist
Toward the end of this period, the system for training and identifying artists began to change. For centuries, artists had been trained as apprentices in workshops or guilds, much like other skilled craftsmen such as carpenters or goldsmiths.
Beginning in the 16th and 17th centuries, the academy emerged as a new model for artistic education. Academies, such as the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture founded in 1648, were centralized institutions that offered a structured, theoretical curriculum. They taught that art was not just a manual craft but an intellectual pursuit, grounded in classical principles, mathematics, and history. This shift redefined the artist's identity from a humble artisan to a learned professional, elevating the status of painting and sculpture in society.
Data & Organization Tools
Required Works ID
| Title | Artist/Culture | Date | Function |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bayeux Tapestry | English or Norman | c. 1066–1080 | Commemorative, propagandistic |
| Röttgen Pietà | Late medieval German | c. 1300–1325 | Devotional, contemplative |
| Las Meninas | Diego Velázquez | c. 1656 | Royal portrait, status statement |
| Ecstasy of Saint Teresa | Gian Lorenzo Bernini | c. 1647–1652 | Devotional, theatrical, didactic |
| Frontispiece of the Codex Mendoza | Viceroyalty of New Spain | c. 1541–1542 | Informational, commemorative, tribute record |
Evidence Bank
Patronage: The system in which patrons (individuals or groups) commission, fund, and direct the creation of artworks, heavily influencing their content and form.
Corporate Patron: An institution or group that commissions art, such as the Church, a guild, or a city government, often for a public purpose.
Didactic Art: Art created with the primary purpose of teaching or instructing, especially religious or moral lessons to a non-literate audience.
Reliquary: A container for holy relics, often lavishly decorated, that serves as a focus for veneration and pilgrimage.
Iconoclasm: The social or religious belief in the importance of the destruction of images, particularly for religious reasons.
Art Academy: An institutionalized, formal school of art that emerged in the early modern period, promoting a theoretical and classical approach to artistic training.
Las Meninas: A prime example of individual royal patronage, this complex painting was made for the king's private viewing and explores themes of art, reality, and the status of the painter.
Bayeux Tapestry: A work of corporate patronage, this textile narrative celebrates and justifies the Norman Conquest of England for a public audience.
Skill Snapshots
Visual:
The immense scale and linear narrative of the Bayeux Tapestry → Allowed it to be displayed publicly and "read" by a large audience as a commemorative history.
The graphic wounds and distorted anguish of the Röttgen Pietà → Intended to provoke a powerful, personal, and emotional devotional response in the viewer.
The lavish use of gold and multimedia elements in Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa → Created a dramatic, theatrical spectacle to inspire awe and reinforce Catholic doctrine during the Counter-Reformation.
Comparison/Attribution:
The Bayeux Tapestry served a public, propagandistic function for a corporate patron, while Las Meninas served a private, intellectual function for an individual royal patron.
A reliquary like that of Sainte-Foy was an object of ritual and pilgrimage intended for public veneration, whereas the Röttgen Pietà was a small sculpture likely intended for private, contemplative devotion.
The anonymous creators of the Bayeux Tapestry worked as artisans, while Velázquez, the prominent artist in Las Meninas, asserted his high intellectual and social status through his work.
Continuity & Change:
Baseline: In the early medieval period, artists were largely anonymous craftspeople working in workshops.
Change: By the Renaissance, individual artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci achieved international fame and status.
Change: The founding of academies in the 17th century formalized art education and established the artist as a trained intellectual, not just a skilled laborer.
Continuity: Throughout the entire period, the creation of major artworks remained dependent on the funding and goals of powerful patrons.
Common Misconceptions & Clarifications
Misconception: All art from this period was religious.
- Clarification: While religion was a dominant theme, secular art for civic buildings and private palaces was also common, serving propagandistic, commemorative, and decorative functions.
Misconception: A "patron" is just a wealthy person who buys art.
- Clarification: Patrons were active commissioners who dictated the subject matter, materials, and even style of the work. Patrons could also be powerful institutions, like a city government or the Church.
Misconception: Artists had complete creative freedom.
- Clarification: The artist's vision was almost always secondary to the requirements of the patron and the function of the artwork. The modern idea of artistic freedom did not yet exist.
Misconception: Academies were simply art schools.
- Clarification: Academies were powerful institutions that standardized taste, promoted a specific style based on classical ideals, and created a hierarchy of genres, thereby defining what was considered "great art."
Summary
The art of Early Europe and Colonial America was fundamentally shaped by its purpose and its audience. Commissioned by powerful individual and corporate patrons, artworks functioned as tools for everything from religious instruction and devotion to political propaganda and the commemoration of history. The original display context—be it a public cathedral, a private chapel, or a royal palace—was crucial to an artwork's meaning. While the role of the artist evolved from an anonymous artisan to a trained academic professional, the constant factor was the essential relationship between the creator, the commissioner, and the intended viewer. To analyze this art is to ask not only "What does it look like?" but also "What was it made to do?"